Goodbye Stranger
by Mixedia
Summary: Clarence Novak has brain damage that is slowly deteriorating. The damage began causing him to hallucinate that he is an Angel called Castiel and all the people in his life are either demons, hunters, monsters or other angels living a surreal alternate reality. Inspired by Will Graham's character and mental illness from Hannibal
1. I'm an Angel

He opened his eyes and looked round. The field he stood in was completely different to what he had been looking at before. In the eternal Tuesday afternoon of the drowned autistic man, it was always sunny and bright. The colours were all perfect, greens were most definitely Green with a capital letter, just like the blue of the sky was Blue and the colours of the flowers were all primary colours with no shades in between. Here, the sky was the dark of night, with black clouds covering the stars and moon. The grass he stood on was inky coloured and everything he could see seemed to have been leeched of colour so it was all that inky sameness that night provides. He became vaguely aware of his toes curling in the grass, the texture tickling slightly and feeling colder than he expected and the breeze brushing over his bare arms and chest had a cold bite too. He blinked, trying to make understanding enter his mind, but it was difficult.

"Clarence!" A voice called behind him. Female, American drawl... Meg. The name hit him like a ton of bricks. Meg, she was a demon with eyes black and bottomless and her soul was a dark, thorny beauty. But when her running steps brought her round to face him, all he saw was chocolate brown eyes staring at him beneath a worried brow, her reddish brown hair wafting in the breeze a little and her arms wrapped tight around her to keep her coat from coming open. "Clarence, are you crazy? It's 24degrees out here and you're not wearing shoes or a coat. You'll freeze to death."

He tilted his head a little and looked at her with confusion. He lifted a hand and let the pads of his fingers brush over her cheekbone with a feather light touch. "Oh Meg, don't worry about me." He told her, his voice growling and low. "I am an angel of the Lord. I do not feel the cold." "Okay, well, still, I'd rather you came inside, Feathers." She replied, her own hand coming up to meet his and running down the line of his arm. Her hand found its way to his back and splayed out at the bottom, her pinkie finger teasing the edge of his pyjama bottoms and the rest pressed firmly and reassuringly against his spine. "Will you come inside for me?" She asked him, her voice velvety and comforting. He closed his eyes and let it wash over him a little, a small smile playing on his lips as he enjoyed the feeling of her warm hand on his back. It was suddenly joined by her other hand on his chest, pressing ever so slightly more as she guided him to turn round. When they were facing the right way, she slipped the rest of her arm around him, slotting herself against his side and pulling his own arm around her so he was leaning on her a little, her tiny frame somehow strong enough to support his own as they made their way through the field, up the road and back to a house.

Meg closed the door behind them and then took him over to a sofa in a living room he was vaguely familiar with, sitting him down and pulling a blanket over his lap. "Now you wait right there." She instructed him. "I'm going to call Doctor Wesson and see if he can prescribe anything to make you feel better, alright?" He hummed his consent while keeping his eyes closed, pulling the blanket up a little and smelling the fabric - the scent of pumpkin, toffee apple and bonfire smoke drifting up his nose and telling him that this was most definitely her blanket. He heard her pick up the phone in the hall and opened his eyes, letting them wander round the room as he recognised that this is where they lived together. The television in the corner was turned off, but on the stand just in front of it was a picture of the two of them, smiling at the camera and holding hands. On the coffee table in front of him was a half finished cup of coffee - that was his own - and two unfinished sandwiches - one peanut butter and grape jelly and one pure peanut butter - that was what they had been eating earlier. Meg tasted like peanut butter, he remembered.

"Hi, Doctor Wesson? It's Meg Novak." Her voice came from the hallway and he turned to see her staring at him, her brow furrowed and her teeth worrying at her lip. "Well he seemed fine earlier, but he went missing about 90minutes ago." "Speaker phone, Meg." He told her, annoyance creeping into his voice. He didn't like it when she spoke about him and he couldn't hear the other side of the conversation, he remembered. Meg pressed a button on the cordless phone and brought it into the room, placing it onto the table in front of him and then sitting next to him. "Hello." Said the man on the phone. "I want you to tell me your name, where you are and how you're feeling."

Meg turned to look at him and when he returned the look, she nudged him gently and raised her eyebrows expectantly. He leaned forward a little so his voice would carry better over the line. "My name is Clarence Novak." He spoke clearly, clearing his throat a little to try and get rid of the growl. "I am at my home in Lawrence, Kansas with my wife Meg. But I am feeling confused. Hello Sam." He finished, letting the doctor know he was gaining his memory. "Hi Clarence." Sam replied, obvious relief in his voice. "Alright, great. Well done, you're gaining your memory quite well. What do you remember from tonight?"

Silence filled the room for a moment. Clarence wasn't sure he wanted to say it all out loud in front of Meg, especially considering what he had seen her do only hours before. But he knew she would worry about him if he didn't. He sent her a quick apologetic look, which caused her to lean forward and grasp his hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze and letting him know that of course, it was alright. "I was sitting in the living room, watching tv with Meg." He began slowly, speeding up as he continued. We were watching a show about feral dogs in Phoenix, about how they get abandoned by their owners and can often become angry with humanity for the way they are treated. Meg turned to me and said maybe we should get a dog, but I told her I would prefer a Guinea Pig. She laughed and kissed me on the cheek, then went to the bathroom..."

He paused, really not wanting to continue for Meg's sake. Her hand rested on his shoulder and she smiled at him again, letting him knew she understood that what came next was out of his own control. "Then... I was Castiel again." He continued. "I was in the car with Jo and Ellen. We were heading to Carthage because my brother Lucifer was performing a ritual. You and Dean had found the Colt..." "You mean myself and Doctor Smith?" Doctor Wesson cut in so he could fully grasp what he was being told. But it made Clarence lose his train of thought for a moment and he paused, trying to connect the two men in his mind. "Yes, Dean Smith... Doctor Smith... He's Dean Winchester... Yes, that's what I..." "Clarence." Meg cut in, carefully brushing her fingers through his hair, helping him refocus his mind. He smiled apologetically at her again. "I'm sorry. I'll continue." He told them both, linking his fingers in with hers.

"You and Doctor Smith... Sam and Dean Winchester... You had found the Colt and were planning on emptying it into Lucifer's face, hoping to stop the apocalypse. When we arrived there, I had to leave my friends. There were reapers... reapers everywhere. So many of them. I began to realise they were there to meet their boss, Death the Horseman, so I began to follow where they were facing and ended up trapped in a circle of holy fire. Angels cannot escape from holy fire." "Were you alone?" Wesson asked, his voice crackling slightly as a gust of wind from outside affected the line. "No, my brother was there." Clarence answered, closing his eyes to help himself focus more. "What did you and your brother do?" Sam asked. "Nothing. Talked." Clarence replied. "We were making small talk, I told him if he hurt you or your brother, or tried to possess you, I would kill him myself... Then Meg came in." "I was there?" Meg interrupted, surprise lacing her voice. "Yes... you were a demon." He told her, regret at this detail leaking into his own tones. He felt her stiffen next to him for a moment, making him feel even worse, but he knew he had to finish telling them. "You told my brother you had the Winchesters trapped using hell hounds and were waiting for instructions on whether to kill them or not."

Silence filled the room once again as the two let the information sink in, regret filling every particle of Clarence's being. Then Sam cleared his throat over the line. "Clarence, Meg, you have to understand the hallucinations Clarence experiences have no relevance to his everyday life. He sees people he knows in reality because that is the information his brain has to work with. It's like... having really vivid daydreams. There is no reason or meaning behind him seeing you as a demon, Meg, just like there is no reason for me or Doctor Smith to feature in his dreams other than the fact that he happens to know us." "I know that, of course I know that." Meg replied, rubbing her hand on Clarence's shoulder and smiling at him sympathetically. "Honestly Doctor, I'm not so worried about the content of his hallucinations, I'm worried about how they're making him act. It wasn't so bad when he was just dreaming them, but just now he's obviously lost 90minutes of time and was standing in a field outside just wearing his pyjama bottoms. I don't know how long he was out there and the idea of him getting lost or stranded..."

"Meg, hey Meg, I understand." Doctor Wesson cut her off, but Clarence had already heard her words and they cut deep. "Of course the forefront of both mine and Doctor Smith's minds is always Clarence's safety. I think his clinical appointments need to be increased. I already have you booked in for an appointment in 6 months but I'd much rather see you before then, if that's alright with you Clarence?" "Yes, of course." Clarence sighed. "The last thing I want to do is cause more concern for Meg." "Well that's what we're here for. I'll call Doctor Smith tonight and have him call in on you tomorrow to see how you're doing and discuss maybe adjusting your medication. I'd like to see you in 3 weeks for a full MRI scan please. Meg, we can sort out the details later this week if you'd like. For now, I'd like you both to go about your lives as normal. Get some rest, both of you, Meg, remember to lock all the doors as we discussed and if anything more happens, please don't hesitate to contact me. Alright?" "Thanks Doc." Meg replied, rubbing a hand down her tired face but looking a little more content than she had earlier.

She handed Clarence his sandwich as she hung up the phone, taking it and the coffee pot back to the hall. "The coffee's stone cold by now Clarence. I'll pour it down the drain and tidy up, then maybe we can go to bed?" She suggested, raising her voice as she walked through to the kitchen so he could still hear her. "Sounds like a plan." He called back, taking a nibble of his sandwich.

Desperately, he clung to the familiarity of the taste and texture of the food as he rested the plate on his lap and reached a hand to his back. He'd been a normal human for much longer than his condition had been affecting him, so he still found it surreal when he reached back and was surprised that his fingers weren't met with the soft caress of feathers, or when he clenched a fist and they didn't tingle with grace running under his skin. He tried to do the tests when Meg was in other rooms as much as possible so she wouldn't see, but she had caught him once or twice and unfortunately, tonight was one of those nights. But even as she stopped suddenly in the doorway, staring at his contorted arm with wide eyes, he didn't stop feeling his back, trying to bring his mangled brain back to reality again. She padded over and sat next to him, placing a hand on his thigh.

"What do they feel like?" She asked him in a half whisper. "Your wings, I mean." "Soft." He smiled at her as he felt along his shoulder blades, pressing the firmness and feeling the nerves reacting. "They're huge, Meg. Black like a raven and incredible. They're a little oily too, like a duck's feathers which I suppose makes sense, keeps them waterproof. My grace is... amazing. So much power compacted into one body, I feel like I could do anything at all, like I'm completely invincible. I love my angelic body." He told her. "M... More than you love me?" She stammered, hurt already evident on her face. His heart sank. How could she ask that of him? He pulled his arm back so he was no longer feeling his shoulder blades, facing her with his whole body and placing his plate back on the table. Taking her hands in his, he looked deep into her eyes. "No Meg, I could never love anything as much as I love you." He told her, sounding more certain than he had of anything in weeks. "I said my angelic body feels invincible, but my angelic brother taught me otherwise today. He surrounded me in holy fire and I couldn't move. My power was completely diminished until there was nothing left, until I was nothing but a human. Normally that wouldn't have bothered me. But to Castiel, standing in that ring of fire facing his brother who has started the apocalypse and is planning to destroy the world and half his friends, it was terrifying for him. The only thing keeping me from screaming in fear was seeing you there, although Castiel doesn't understand why he feels anything for you. You kept me feeling safe." "But I'm a demon." She replied through the tears running down her cheeks. "Doesn't that make me one of the bad guys?"

"But you're still my Meg." He told her, brushing a stray tear off her cheek with the pad of his thumb. "And to me, all that... thorny darkness I see in you... that's far more beautiful. And Castiel knows that."

She leaned forward and kissed him on the lips, just a quick pressure between them before she sank into his chest and he wrapped his arms around her, pulling her so close she was sat in his lap. He leaned back and she followed until they were curled up together on the sofa, silent. "Hey, Clarence?" she said, breaking the silence after a few moments. He hummed to show he was listening. "You just separated yourself from Castiel. You spoke about him like he was a different being to you. I've not heard you do that before." He tilted his head in thought, going back over his own words to study what he had said and realised she was right. "I suppose I did." He said with a smile she couldn't see while she was nuzzled into his chest. "I guess you brought me out of it." "I hope it lasts." She told him, squeezing him a little tighter and inhaling his scent. "Yes... me too." He agreed, knowing that the way his condition was going, that was, unfortunately, not going to happen.


	2. Angel Wings

He clenched his hand and smiled as the tingle of grace spread through his muscles. Breathing in and puffing his chest out, he let his wings spread on either side of him, enjoying the way the wind rippled each and every feather individually. He knew he was peacocking, but he really didn't care. The Winchesters weren't praying to him and as far as he could tell, the apocalypse had ended, so he let himself adjust to being an angel again. Somewhere high above him in heaven, his brothers were slaughtering one another in the name of Free Will and he guessed they would continue to do so until Raphael was taken down. But he didn't have the power he needed to take him down as of yet, so there was no point joining in the fight, he'd likely be slaughtered himself and then he couldn't carry on his job of protecting his friends as he was commanded by his father. Slowly, he became more and more aware of his own being, crammed into the body of Jimmy Novak who had long since vacated and found his own patch of heaven as a reward for giving up his body to act as a vessel. But then he felt the tingle of prayer at the base of his skull, making the short hairs at the top of his neck stand on end. He closed his eyes to concentrate on it a little better, expecting to hear the demanding tones of Dean Winchester, or the softer, more caring notes of Dean's brother, Sam, or maybe even the heavily accented Redneck voice of Bobby Singer. But the voice he heard instead was a drawling woman's voice, the one that pierced through all his defences and reached right into his grace. He was in the air and back on solid ground in a fraction of a second, the scent changing from pine and forest to damp, mould and abandonment. But through it all was a current of pumpkin, bonfire smoke and sulphur. "Hello Meg." He greeted her before opening his eyes and seeing that swirling mass of dark, thorny beauty within the feminine vessel. "Peacocking for me, Clarence?" she smirked, looking pointedly at his wings, spread wide on either side of him. Something in his mind clicked, a conversation he hadn't had but knew all the same. He decided to ignore it for the moment. "I thought you had planned to lay low." He told her, folding his wings back against his body as he walked forward to stand in front of her. "Calling me to you is like shining a beacon directly onto yourself is it not? What do you want?" "Maybe I just got lonely." she purred, moving forward a little and placing her hands on his chest. "Maybe I want you here to strut your peacocking self around in front of me for a bit of entertainment. Gets boring, you know, laying below the radar." Wrapping a sudden, strong arm around her back and pressing a hand to her forehead, letting his grace caress her, he scowled down at her. "You're a demon, Meg. I am an Angel of the Lord. I could smite you where you stand." He growled, struggling against his own compulsion to destroy her there and then. "Keep talking dirty makes my meat suit all dewy." She joked, widening her eyes a moment as if in a challenge, then pushing herself away from him, of course, him letting her go. Something within him just did not want to hurt her. Not really. He sighed in frustration, wondering how she managed to get under his skin every time, but feeling more frustrated wondering why he enjoyed the sensation. He sat down, shuffling round a little until his grace was sitting more comfortably in the confined space of his vessel and his wings were supported a little better. Since gaining a vessel, he found they caused him more backache than before, a distinctly unpleasant sensation. Meg was watching him as he rearranged himself, a look of curiosity on her features and her body relaxed. When he was finally sat back still, she walked towards him and sat down at his feet. "What do they feel like?" She asked him, almost tentatively. "Your wings." He started a little at the question, not because it surprised him, as far as he was concerned it was her way of making small talk. But something in the back of his mind told him she had made this enquiry before, only... he hadn't been able to show her. "Heavy." He answered, truthfully. He sat forward a little and pulled one out, letting it stretch out a little so they could both see it more clearly. He ran a hand through the downy feathers, trying to find a way to describe them best to her. "Soft. A little oily too, like a duck's feathers which I suppose makes sense as it would keep them waterproof. My grace is... amazing. So much power compacted into one body, I feel like I could do anything at all, like I'm completely invincible. Although of course I know I'm not, just as much as you do..." He paused in his trail of thought. He felt like he'd told her those words before, but last time he could only describe. This time... "Would you like to feel them?" Her eyebrows flew into her hairline in her surprise at the offer. At the same time, her hand twitched and he wondered how long she had wanted to do exactly that. "Why would I want to?" She scoffed, however, but he could detect the insincerity in her voice. "I'm a demon, I don't care. I was just making small talk." "Meg, we're alone here. You don't have to hide from me." He reassured her quietly. His eyes caught hers and locked in place, showing her the truth of his words. She gulped, obviously warring with her own curiosity and want versus keeping up her demonic demeanour. In the end, curiosity won. Scrambling to her feet, she came to sit next to him, on the very edge of the sofa seat so she wasn't resting against them. Slowly, she reached out, watching the raven black wings for any sign of movement, threatening or not as she approached. Castiel held his breath as he watched her, wondering what it would feel like to have someone other than him or his siblings touching this very angelic part of his body, a part that not even his friends had touched. Of course, being human, neither Sam or Dean could see his feathers, but being a demon, Meg could see beyond the veil to this part of him. Finally, her fingers made contact and her thorny darkness rose to meet his bright, angelic grace. He'd expected it to hurt them, a war of the two polar opposites colliding together but instead, they wrapped around one another, testing, tasting each other before settling down together in a unity neither of them expected. Both demon and angel gasped and sat still for a moment, his hands clasped in his lap, her finger tips hidden by the soft, tiny fibres of feathers and wing. Slowly, gently, she began to move, following the natural flow of the feathers and letting them caress the pads of her fingers. They were even softer than she had expected, almost feeling like they weren't there, but the slight tickling and the tingle of his grace meeting her darkness let her know they were. * * * * * Clarence Novak was actually smiling a little in his sleep, a sight Meg Novak had not seen in months, not since his condition had worsened. She leant against the doorframe of their bedroom, enjoying the sight of him resting so peacefully. His skin wasn't clammy and sweat covered, his breathing was slow and regular, his brow wasn't furrowed, for all intents and purposes he looked like a normal, perfectly healthy man. But she could just glimpse a patch of uneven hair at the back of his head, the edge of one of the bald spots caused by the accident that had started it all. Clarence grunted suddenly, like something had caused him a sudden, mild pain and she wondered what his other self... this... Castiel... an angel for crying out loud was doing with her husband tonight. She wished she could know, wished she could follow him into these dreams and hallucinations, wished she could see what he was seeing, feel what he was feeling. But she knew it was a side of him she would never see and it made her uncomfortably sad. A knock sounded at their front door and she left the bedroom to go greet whoever had called round, feeling like Clarence would actually be safe without her constant vigilance for once. The silhouette on the other side of the door's glass panels was tall and broad, only able to belong to one person. "Hey Dean-o." She cried as she opened the door, smiling up at the 6foot 1 figure of Dean Smith, his hair artfully spiked as always and his emerald eyes glinting in the dull light of the winter's morning. "Hi Meg. Is he still in bed?" Dean replied, getting right to the point. "Sleeping like a baby, would you believe? Come on in." She invited, stepping back so he could enter her house. He shucked his boots off at the beginning of the hallway as she wandered into the kitchen to set a kettle on to boil. Dean shuffled in, pulling out a chair at the small dining room table that was pressed against the back kitchen wall and sitting down facing her, one arm resting on the table itself and the other on the chair's back. "Sam called last night." Dean informed her. "Said Clarence had another episode. Want to tell me about it?" Meg paused, putting down the freshly boiled kettle on the counter beside her and tilting her head down to stare into the cafetiere, watching the water she had already poured bubbling and mixing together with the ground coffee in the bottom. "He ended up in the back fields, muttering about Lucifer and the apocalypse again." she told him, picking the kettle back up to resume pouring water into the mixture. "I was gone for literally sixty seconds to pee and when I came back, the door was wide open and he was outside in nothing but his pyjama pants." "We always knew his condition would worsen Meg. It wasn't a case of 'If', it was a case of 'When'." Dean explained with sympathy. He couldn't even imagine what she was going through. He was terrified too, but Clarence was just his best friend. This was Clarence's wife he was talking to. "Yeah I know." She replied, carrying the two steaming cups of coffee over to the table, then heading back to grab a sugar bowl, cream jar and two spoons, placing them on the table and then sitting opposite Dean. "I just wish we knew what's triggered it to suddenly get so much worse. It wasn't so bad when he was just dreaming these things. Why have they suddenly become hallucinations? Why are they suddenly so much more real to him now?" "Could be the cold?" Dean suggested, shrugging his shoulders. "The type of brain damage he has is a complete mystery to us all, both as his friends and as medical scientists. You know as well as I do he should have died that night." "I'm glad he didn't." Meg said simply, studying her mug of coffee intensely. "Was last night like his other episodes? What was different this time?" Dean asked her, obviously trying to get back to the matter at hand, trying to make her study what had happened objectively so she didn't disappear into a desperate sink hole of the why's and the how's of his condition. "It took a few minutes for him to realise he isn't actually Castiel, that he isn't this... invincible being and that things like the cold can actually hurt him. But once it dawned on him, he was happy enough to do as I told him." She took a sip of her coffee, burning her lips a little on the hot liquid but relishing the pain as a way to ground her to the here and now as she thought about the fear she felt from the night before. "While he was talking about what he'd seen with Doctor Wesson, he still firmly believed he was Castiel, describing everything as if he had done it himself. But I sat chatting with him after we hung up the phone and he began differentiating himself, saying 'Castiel did this' and 'Castiel thinks that' rather than using 'I' and 'me'. I've never really heard him switch in the middle of a conversation or stay as himself for long periods of time since the accident. Would you take it as a sign he's getting a bit better?" She looked up suddenly at Dean, hope sparkling from her eyes in a way that wrapped around Dean's heart and squeezed painfully. He hated himself for having to break that hope she had. "If it is a sign, then it's a miracle. I know Sam made a new appointment for the two of you to go and see him soon, I'd like to get him through the MRI while he's there so we can get a proper look at what's going on with him physically. We can sit and talk about what's going on mentally with him until we're blue in the face, but it won't give us any more of an idea about whether the abscess has grown or not and whether there is still fluid pressing on his brain." "Well it's nice to know the two of you enjoy such riveting conversations about me while I'm sleeping." Came a sudden voice from the entrance to the kitchen. Both Meg and Dean turned to face Clarence who was stood watching them both, pyjama bottoms riding low on his hips, hair scruffy and dishevelled and sleep written all over his face. "Good morning to you too, bed head." Meg smirked, getting out of her chair and moving to pour a cup of coffee for him. Dean stood up and faced his friend, who moved a little more into the room so the two men were stood right in front of one another. "So who am I looking at today?" Dean asked, a little nervous of the answer. Clarence sighed. "You are looking at Clarence Novak, human, vulnerable and in desperate need of coffee and bacon before I do this." Clarence grumbled back, narrowing his eyes at Dean as if daring him to disagree. Dean held up his hands in surrender and took half a step back as Clarence followed his wife to the counter and downed the mug of coffee she had poured for him. "Hot." He stated, sticking his tongue out and holding the mug in her direction. "More." "Not even a please?" Meg scolded him, but she turned to grin at Dean who returned the expression when Clarence began searching through the fridge for bacon. Dean Smith sat at the kitchen table, happily watching the married couple working around one another to cook breakfast. It was almost like they were dancing, fluid like movements around one another as plates began to be filled with food for the three of them to share. As they worked, they chatted, just simple small talk, conversations about the weather, who they thought was going to win the Superbowl this year, Dean's partner, Lisa, and her son Ben who Dean had officially adopted only last year. Soon enough, the room was filled with the scent of fried food and the sound of oil crackling as their food cooked. Then, Dean got to see something he had heard plenty about but never actually witnessed himself. At the time, Clarence had been keeping an eye on the bacon, checking underneath to see how it was browning and making sure it didn't spit on Meg. One moment he was regular Clarence, relaxed, smiling and chatting away. The next, he was completely ridged, his shoulders stiff and high, back straightened into the posture of a soldier, face blank, like he was an entirely different person. Dean watched him closely before getting Meg's attention and gesturing to him. "Clarence?" She asked, moving over to rest a hand on his shoulder. "You with us?" Suddenly, he jerked and shivered, looking down at her and then back at the bacon before smiling at her once again. "Sorry, I must have spaced out." He told her, bending to kiss her on the cheek. She returned it to the part of his skin she could reach, then wandered back over to the table with buttered bread and the cafetiere. "I'm going to go dress." she said, pulling the shirt of her pyjamas down a little, feigning self consciousness and giving a wide eyed look to Dean before she left the room. Clarence turned to smile affectionately at her retreating back, then caught the look Dean was giving him and realised he was about to have a round of 20 questions about how he was doing. Sighing, he turned the cooker off and piled the bacon onto a plate, bringing it over to the table and sitting down opposite his friend. "Help yourself." He said, motioning to the bacon before stabbing his fork through a few slices and making a sandwich out of them, Dean copying his motions. "So what happened just then?" He asked, keeping his eye on Clarence's reaction to the question. "Just what I said... I err... spaced out." Clarence said matter-of-factly, not looking Dean in the eyes. "You've always been a terrible liar, you know that?" Dean told him, smiling a little. Clarence's gaze flickered up to Dean and then back to his sandwich before replying. "I was in the garden again." "The garden of the guy who drowned?" "He was an autistic man when he was alive. His slice of Heaven is an eternal Tuesday afternoon. He spends his time flying a red kite. It's Castiel's favourite heaven." Clarence explained between mouthfuls of food. "When you 'space out', do you still get headaches?" Dean asked, slurping at his coffee. Clarence rested his chin on his hand for a moment before replying. "Do you remember when we were kids? Me and you would always sit way too close to the TV because we didn't want Jo watching it with us and your mom would always tell us off saying we'd get headache from sitting too close?" Dean nodded. "Then there was that night when we were about 13, I came over for a sleepover at your house and we decided to find out if she was right or not, so we sat right up to the TV for an entire night and the next day, we both had raging headaches and struggled to do anything like normal human beings?" By this point Dean was laughing. "Mom went insane at us! Best night ever. I still can't believe we watched an entire series of Star Trek in one night." He chuckled, letting the memory wash over him. "And do you remember the headache after?" Clarence pushed, a smile on his lips but not joining in with Dean's laughter. "Yeah I remember, when you left I was almost sick it was that bad. Jo went and told mom and dad. I was grounded for about a month for that one." Dean said with a shake of his head, remembering the frustration he had felt at his sister for getting him in trouble. "Well that headache? That's my life. All the time now." Clarence told him, looking down at his coffee mug once again, watching as the liquid swirled around inside. Dean's face immediately fell from amused to worried and a little angry. "Clarence, this is the stuff you're supposed to tell us about!" He chastised quietly. "I didn't want to worry Meg." Clarence protested back, looking abashed. "You don't have to tell her." Dean insisted. "I may be your best friend but I am also now your doctor too and that means I operate under Doctor-Patient-Confidentiality about this stuff. Have you been taking anything for the headaches?" "Started out on a couple of Tylenol or aspirin, whatever I could get my hands on. Then I doubled how much I was taking..." "You were taking four Tylenol a day?" Dean interrupted, starting to feel a little better. His headaches couldn't have been that bad. But then Clarence shot the comfort out of the water. "Four Tylenol a pop." He explained. "I took four Tylenol, six times a day." Dean looked at him, horrified for a moment. He rubbed a hand down his mouth and chin, trying to make sense of all the negative emotions the news was making him feel. Then he noticed the wording Clarence had used. "Wait... you started out on Tylenol and aspirin? What have you been taking recently?" Clarence cleared his throat uncomfortably. "Co-codamol, then I got my hands on actual codeine which I took with aspirin and ibuprofen..." "Oh hell Clarence." Dean growled, standing up and rubbing his hands through his hair. "Why didn't you tell me?" He hissed, spinning to face his friend again and glad Meg had decided to stay upstairs to let them have this discussion. "I could have put you on morphine weeks ago! You wouldn't have had to go through all this. We could have done an MRI and found out what's causing the pain." "I had a car accident, Dean." Clarence stated matter-of-factly. "It's caused me to have severe brain damage and mental illness. Do you really think I'm in the right mind to come to you with a problem like this?" As the statement sunk in, Dean began to resemble a puppet who's strings had come loose. His arms flopped to his sides, his shoulders slumped, his face fell and he generally looked defeated. It was the first time he had heard the words from his friend's own mouth and they brought home exactly what they were dealing with. Tears began welling up in his eyes as he looked down at Clarence and he sunk back into his chair as his knees buckled. "Yeah I know you did man." He choked out. "And you're fighting. You're fighting for life and doing such a great job. We're gonna get you there. I promise." "We're going to try." Clarence said with half a smile. Standing up, he walked round the table and pulled Dean to his feet, pulling him in for a hug. "We'll try as hard as we can." He whispered. 


End file.
